(rock music)
- Hi, I'm Corey Williams, plant manager
at Dearborn Truck Plant.
For more than a hundred years
the historic Rouge site complex has produced
some of the most world-famous vehicles,
from the Model A, the Mustang, to the F-150.
And I'm excited to say soon, the Rouge
will be producing the truck of the future,
the electric Ford F-150 Lightning.
This vehicle is defining a new era for Rouge
and Ford's commitment to manufacturing.
The F-150 Lightning will be built
at the new Rouge Electric Vehicle Center,
a 500,000 square foot building with nearly
18,000 yards of concrete and 5,600 tons of steel.
It was built on a foundation
of the former Dearborn Assembly Plant,
linking the site's past to its future
as we look ahead towards another century of innovation.
Ford is investing $700 million
into the historic Rouge complex
and is adding 500 new direct jobs
to build the F-150 Lightning
at the Rouge Electric Vehicle Center,
along with the F-150 Power Boost hybrid
that is built at the Dearborn Truck Plant
located right next door.
Construction of the Rouge Electric Vehicle Center
is well underway.
The exterior is finished, and we're now
in the process of moving machinery into the building
and installing the tooling that will be used
to build the F-150 Lightning.
The interior will look much different
than its next door neighbor, Dearborn Truck Plant.
There won't be any conveyors on the plant floor.
Instead, automated guided carriers
will move the vehicle from workstation to workstation
like a well-choreographed ballet.
And the great thing about this
is our flexibility in production.
When customer demand goes up, we can flex our production
with these automated guided carriers
and we don't have to physically
take a conveyance line and move it.
Ford's commitment to manufacturing
includes a commitment to manufacturing sustainably.
We're proud that Ford's Rouge Electric Vehicle Center
utilizes many leading environmental innovations
to reduce waste and save water and energy.
Like the Dearborn Truck Plant,
the Rouge Electric Vehicle Center
is a zero waste to landfill site.
That means that none of the material generated
as a byproduct of the manufacturing process
will go to landfill.
We've even built rooms, recycle rooms,
sorting rooms so we can sort, get it to the right place
to be recycled and eventually use again.
We'll also have a wood pallet shredder,
producing a recyclable material
from the wood pallets that were
previously considered non-recyclable.
The building is heated and cooled
using a direct expansion cooling system,
with air being the primary media
instead of a water-based system.
This significantly reduces the use of the water
and the associated waste, energy consumption
and processing for water-cooled systems.
The building uses natural light along with LED
to reduce overall energy footprint.
The F-150 Lightning won't be the only machine
in the building with zero emissions.
The primary forklift truck fleet
will use hydrogen fuel cells.
Even the foundation and the dirt
the Rouge Electric Vehicle Center sits on is recycled.
During the construction process, the concrete
and other compatible construction materials
were crushed and moved offsite, then reapplied onsite
as a part of the needed foundations.
This technology is state of the art,
and it is the technology that has taken us
to the next level.
Ford is invested in our future and the F-150 Lightning
and the Rouge Electric Vehicle Center
are prime examples of progress on our path
to be a carbon-neutral company by 2050.
The plant workers take a lot of pride in the F-150.
The fact that the electric F-150 is being built
here at the historic Rouge site means something
to us and our community.
We're excited to take manufacturing into the future
with the F-150 Lightning that is built for America,
built Ford tough and built Ford proud.
(metal clanging)